In the Balance
Four alumni authors consider, then dismantle, the myths that govern how we choose our careers and that keep us stuck in unhealthy patterns from childhood to retirement.
Risk and Reward
Rajiv Shah M’02 GrW’05 heads the Rockefeller Foundation and has worked for the Gates Foundation and in government on critical issues in public health and international development. In his new book, Big Bets, he shows how embracing smart criticism—from Bill Gates, for one—and never settling for merely incremental change can pay off.
Homecoming 2023
Our annual photo gallery. Plus: the Alumni Awards of Merit and citations.
Fake Simple
Amanda Shulman C’15 has earned national acclaim with Her Place Supper Club, where she’s also bending stubborn industry standards around life balance and labor compensation. It all began with a jolt to Penn’s off-campus social scene.
“A Place I Could Be Myself”
The Penn Women’s Center celebrates five decades of providing advocacy, advising, refuge, counseling, company, and tea. From its origins in the struggle against campus sexual violence, the center has evolved to tackle a range of concerns, from wellness to combating racism. The latest debate: Is its name, meant to be welcoming, too restrictive or exclusionary at a time when gender itself is contested?
Another Realm
New photographs by Arthur Drooker C’76 explore the elusive moments before dusk when “vivid colors paint the sky with magic and mystery.”
Time Stretcher
From swinging standards to avant garde nonconformism, Penn music professor, jazz drummer, and shapeshifting composer Tyshawn Sorey has won acclaim for “awesomely confounding” music whose “vulnerable virtuosity” can “open different portals in your depth of feeling and imagination.”
The PZ Project
From picture books to The Poet X, Penn Libraries are expanding and diversifying their holdings of books for young readers.
American Science’s Promoter-in-Chief
The great-grandson of a famous founder (of the nation and this University) and “boyhood’s friend” of the president of the Confederacy, educational reformer and onetime Penn professor Alexander Dallas Bache made his own reputation by championing the professionalization of American science in the mid-1800s.
Mann in the Middle
Michael E. Mann has been a central figure in the battle for the environment since the “hockey stick” graph made him a target for climate change deniers 25 years ago. Now on Penn’s faculty and heading the Center for Science, Sustainability, and the Media, he’s fending off a new generation of “inactivists” comprised of climate change deflectors on the right and doomists on the left to get out the message that it’s still within our power to save the planet.
Ode to Ira
To mark the Netter Center’s 30th anniversary, founding director Ira Harkavy C’70 Gr’79 trumpets the past and the future of Penn’s strategies to revitalize West Philadelphia—and alumni return to campus to tout Harkavy as an inspiration in the field of university–community engagement.
Birthday Blooms
A springtime celebration of the 90th year—and recent name tweak—of Penn’s Morris Arboretum and Gardens.
Alumni Weekend 2023
Our annual photo essay.
Alien Minds, Immaculate Bullshit, Outstanding Questions
College in the age of ChatGPT.
Basketball In His Blood
Thirty years after starting the basketball juggernaut AND1, Seth Berger C’89 WG’93 continues to live and breathe hoops—as a father of three (plus a guardian to five Nigerian brothers), a venture capitalist affiliated with the Philadelphia 76ers, and the longtime head coach of a suburban Philadelphia boarding school team that his AND1 cofounder calls the “Duke of high school basketball.”
An Archaeologist Walks into a Bar …
Unearthing the world’s oldest tavern while reconstructing daily life in ancient southern Mesopotamia.
The Olden Bough
Humans have revered ancient trees for about as long as we’ve chopped down forests. What does that fraught relationship reveal about our past? And can it illuminate a path toward a more hopeful future?
A Life’s Calling
For Liz Theoharis C’98, activism has been a way of life—from assisting her parents with their justice work, to community service as a Penn undergrad, to cochairing the recent revival of Martin Luther King Jr.’s Poor People’s Campaign of 1968. The Presbyterian minister, social justice leader, and biblical scholar is committed to reframing the narrative around poverty and the poor while pushing for lasting policy changes.
Rich History, New Visions
At Penn Live Arts, the legendary Negro Ensemble Company is creating new work that explores this country’s racial tensions and challenges. A February world premiere, Mecca is Burning, brought together five playwrights to imagine how four Black families in Harlem might navigate a white-supremacist revolution.
Sir Henry Thornton, On and Off the Rails
Knighted by Britain for his work as the Allies’ “railroad czar” in World War I, the Penn alumnus and Pennsylvania Railroad veteran went on to remake the Canadian National Railways before the Great Depression, poor health, and scandal brought him low.
And the Band Played On
For 125 years, the Penn Band has been an omnipresent and energetic presence at sporting events, campus ceremonies, and whenever “Penn is out and about in the community.”
The Outsider’s Insider
If there is a crisis (and there have been a few lately), Andy Slavitt C’88 W’88 knows which expert to bring “in the bubble.” When he’s not taping his award-winning podcast, the former insurance executive and federal administrator has a day job:funding innovation in healthcare for those who need help the most. “I have one thing I care about,” he says. “Making this country better for the people who have been ignored for too long.”
Homecoming 2022
Our annual photo gallery. Plus: Alumni Award of Merit winners and citations.
Drawing Down the Lightning, Making the Moment
On her inauguration day as the University’s ninth president, Liz Magill shared a vision of even greater impact and influence for Penn’s next chapter, picnicked on Shoemaker Green with members of the Penn community and some favorite musicians, and hosted a wide-ranging conversation with Supreme Court Justice Elena Kagan at a critical time for the institution.